1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a gripper for flat components and in particular for circuit boards and circuit foils. More particularly, the invention concerns a gripper system for transporting the flat components during assembly.
2. Related Art
The manufacturing process for flat components, such as, for example, circuit boards and circuit foils, is usually subdivided into several production steps. During their manufacture, circuit boards and circuit foils are thus, for example, exposed, etched, cleaned, lacquered, and also dried. During the transport of these flat components, between the individual production stations as well as in them, they are usually held by a gripper in order to make the transport of the mostly very thin components easier. Clamps, pincers, or similar devices, for example, are used as grippers into which the flat components are inserted and then fixed through the manual operation of a lever or a clamping device. With these known grippers there is the danger of sensitive, flat components, such as circuit boards and circuit foils, sustaining damage during the manual insertion into the gripper or while being clamped by the gripper.
A gripper is known from the U.S. Pat. No. 2,549,918, with whose aid flat components such as steel sheets can be picked up and held by hand. The gripper has a gripping slot for receiving the steel sheet and a clamping element that is spring-loaded in the direction of the slot opening. The clamping element can be moved between a clamping position, in which it protrudes into the gripping slot in order to clamp a steel sheet that is inserted into the gripping slot, and an open position in which it is pivoted at least partially out of the gripping slot. A setting segment juts out from the clamping element in the form of a lever, which is operated manually to move the clamping element from the clamping position into the open position. Because of its nature, in particular the arrangement and shape of its positioning segment, this known gripper is only suitable for the manual handling of steel sheets. The known gripper could only be used in automated production facilities through additional measures, for instance through the use of an actuator with which the positioning segment for opening the gripper can be operated.